


Words of the Sym69l and the Bl69d

by EK (ilyat)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Illustrated, Religion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyat/pseuds/EK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally titled, "The Twelve Varied Accounts of Significant Historical and Religious Importance As Written By Multiple Distinct Authors Concerning the History of the Subjugation of the Castes Through Means of the Hemospectrum, the Life and Death of the Signless (Also Known As the Sufferer), the Words of the Signless (Side Notes Identical to Previous), the Events Surrounding the Revolt of the Summoner, and the Final Prophecy As Foretold by an Author of Unknown and Ominous Origin," this religious text's name was shortened to the the "Words of the Sym69l and the Bl69d" to keep it away from the attention of the Alternian Empire. Use of a significantly shortened and atypical naming process has permitted it to remain hidden by those cultists who still follow the Words.</p><p>It is sometimes shortened further, to simply "69".</p><p> </p><p>(Full size illustrations at cidraco.tumblr.com.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words of the Sym69l and the Bl69d

**Author's Note:**

> The first book of the Sermons of the Sym69l, as writ by the Dolorosa.

  


**I.**

1 A tale must start where it must start; 2 and this  
beginning must be told by she who has  
nurtured the Life and reared the Words, by she  
who has forsaken all to bring  
safety to He who is the most Wretched,  
He who is the most Wise. 3 Hearken;  
hearken ye all to words of salvation.  
4 Today there is a blight upon us all.  
5 It is a terrible, insidious  
maliciousness that has caught everytroll  
within its web as thoroughly as that  
of the great spinnerbeast who traps her prey  
to drink it dry until there is naught left  
behind save a dry exoskeleton.  
6 Hope is not lost, for one has come to us  
who knows the name held by this blight, who knows  
there is a way for us to turn it back,  
to pass through it, to persevere; 7 and so  
our future generations may one day  
all live as one, and in a place that is  
both great and truly free. 8 For He has come  
to us, and He has told us of this way.  
9 Hearken ye to His words. Hearken ye to  
the words of He who bears no sign - Signless -  
for that which He alone began we all  
now must finish as one. 10 Hearken, and know  
that you are not despicable, that you  
are not alone or abandoned. 11 The web  
of oppression draws 'round us, tight, tighter,  
and now it falls upon the shoulders of  
every troll to cut through and save us all.  
12 Hearken ye to these words. Hearken ye well,  
for without understanding where we have  
come from, you cannot understand what He  
has said, or where He has shown us to go  
from here into an auspisticed new world.

**II.**

1 From one came the many, and across the  
whole world we spread. 2 There were trollkind of all  
sizes, of all colors, of all creeds and  
all habitats; trolls from the caves below,  
and from the forests dark, and from the vast  
ocean's cold depths, and from deserts ablaze  
with heat so great it was a death sentence.  
3 We settled and we conquered until the  
entire world became our own, 4 and we  
grew great and powerful and many, 'til  
we were too great, too powerful, and too  
many to live upon this world, our home.  
5 Alternia was merely the start, and  
trollkind turned toward the stars so far above.  
6 There were many of us who left our hives  
and our cities behind, and we traveled  
the galaxy in our great battleships.  
7 We found one planet after another,  
each one to claim, each one our new domain;  
system after system to add to the  
the ever growing empire. 8 Arrayed  
in hues, we marched in teams, in squads, and side  
by side for the glory of all our kind:  
there were violets and yellows, blues and greens,  
so many colors for a single cause.  
9 It was for her - everything was for her  
Incessant Consternation, her vision  
of what we were and what should be - that we  
marched on, expanded and grew to something  
even greater than ever stood before.

**III.**

1 And so chaos became order under  
the Consternation's tyrian banner.  
2 And by her Incessant Decree, our hues  
were brought to bear. Rainbow became the law  
and all trollkind were bound by its colors;  
3 to blood was given meaning, and from blood  
was birthed meaning for all. 4 For 'lo, if there  
were no worth in the color of oneself,  
no hidden purpose brought to light, why would  
there be so many? 5 By virtue of birth,  
of luck, of chance, of blood alone, we found  
that chains were placed around our wrists, holding  
us fast, an unseen mark of slavery.  
6 We then were known only by the colors  
flowing beneath our skin - in blood and tears  
and sweat - and, by the Incessant Decree,  
in sigils, forced to wear upon our breast.  
7 We were divided, catalogued, ordered,  
from hundreds and from thousands of colors;  
8 she made a scale for us: two score and eight,  
divided further into only twelve.  
9 Thus it begat meaning to color and  
a means to find the whole worth of ourselves.  
10 If not for the hemospectrum, it was  
decreed, all would be lost. Order would fail.  
11 Only Incessant Consternation bore  
the tyrian purple blood which, alone,  
she deemed worthy to dominate us all.

**IV.**

1 Among us it was asked, 'How is it that  
a Baroness is made? 2 How is it her?  
Why is she the one out of so many?'  
3 For at first, there was some dissent. 4 At first,  
there were those who were not all satisfied  
in the blood structure given unto us,  
an order that was ordered upon us.  
5 At first, there were those among us who spoke  
loudly and we decried the injustice  
of the hemospectrum. 6 And in response  
her Incessant Consternation held out  
her hand to her revolting trolls,  
to her subjects - gracile, magnanimous -  
in invitation for us to come forth  
and petition her with our shared concerns.  
7 We came before her; we came one by one.  
8 We came before her as she sat upon  
her throne, with a party of those with blood  
the color of the twilit sky nearby,  
'To bear witness,' she said, as we drew near.  
9 We came before her, kneeling but wary,  
hopeful and yet afraid, and voices rose  
to speak the merits of equality.  
10 She smiled at us, and she held out her hand,  
and then she asked aloud, 11 'Who here among  
you would follow me for the glory of  
the Alternian empire? Who here  
among you would dare follow me for all  
the glory that to me is due? 12 Speak now,  
cry loud, or breathe your words never again!'  
13 No dissenter would try to speak; our pleas  
had fallen on deaf ears. No dissenter  
would dare to move; no action could dissuade  
her now. 14 And with a wave of her clawed hand,  
all of those standing close to her rushed forth  
with weapons in their hands, and with their hands  
made into weapons for those who bore none,  
and they crushed we who would renounce her rule.  
15 Our bones were shattered, our heads removed.  
16 A rainbow was painted upon the floor,  
in rusts and blues, in greens and yellows, teals.  
17 And only those loyal to her were left  
to stand amid the carnage. 18 There was one  
who stood tallest - who was covered in blood  
from toe to head and back again, who had  
been first to voice her battle cry. 19 And she  
named him the Grandest of High Bloods. She named  
him - he who stood above all other trolls  
that would not, could not dare to swim beneath.  
20 Such was her want to name her champion.  
21 And by the Incessant Decree, she said  
that a Baroness is not made - instead,  
she's born, of royal blood; 22 and death would come  
to all who would dare to challenge her rule,  
to scheme and breed dissent in her empire.

  


**V.**

1 And thus her Incessant Decree  
beget irrefutable law, and which  
in turn perpetuated forced order  
and forced spectrum unto all our trollkind.  
2 The tyrian came first, for it was hers,  
and of this rarity there was but one.  
3 Then violet, the hues of the deep sea;  
4 and so bestowed upon those who lived both  
beneath the waves and on the shores above  
in boundless freedom was the mark and rank  
of royalty. They wore their fins as crowns.  
5 And next were those upon the land, foremost  
the Grandest of High Bloods, who championed  
her name. 6 And with him stood the indigo,  
the blue, the cerulean, and the teal.  
7 They were trolls raised high, but not high enough,  
simply a force on land to do as she  
decreed, each serving at her beck and call  
to force her law on those she named lowborn.  
8 We of Jade blood were next, though it was rare,  
a special consideration given  
for which we lived apart with mother grub.  
9 A peasant station for those who followed:  
from green to lime, and the shades in between;  
not lowborn scum, but low enough that they  
remained beneath imperial notice.  
10 Lowborn were last with blood of gold and brown,  
their muted hues bringing with them short life  
and little use save as the tools by which  
their so-called betters cast them as but pawns.  
11 Lowest of low were those of rust, their blood  
rotting within their veins. 12 Consternation  
nearly struck all written mention of them  
across the galaxy, so great was her  
loathing for the most common born of troll.  
13 And thus the castes formed the hemospectrum,  
and thus were we who wished for more brought down,  
subjugated, slaughtered, enslaved, by those  
who were Incessantly named our betters.

**VI.**

1 Now with her rule secured, she reigned surpreme,  
2 and things were not bad for too short a time.  
3 For after all, she had her example  
made clear to us, painted in all the hues.  
4 Perhaps it was an amusement to her,  
or perhaps there was a greater reason;  
5 she was not cruel as it pleased her. And thus  
she lured us all into complacency.  
6 We strove together to expand her reach.  
We strove as one to build the great city.  
7 And there upon Alternia it rose,  
and by Alternia it bore its name,  
for it was our great Capitol - our home,  
our hope, and our prison. 8 Great spires stretched  
and arched above, reaching to the heavens.  
9 Built by the sea and built upon the shore,  
within Alternia City there were  
both highblood and lowborn. 10 From it came the  
greatest and most advanced technology,  
a shining beacon of innovation,  
the greatest ever in the empire,  
that would range from weapons to computers  
and culminate in the battleship fleet.  
11 Named for herself, the Condesce was the first  
to truly push our innovation far;  
12 it was a marriage between troll and ship  
that was more intimate than the quadrants  
ever could us permit. 13 It bears noting,  
for it was, too, the first wherein a troll  
of lowborn blood was forced to slave and toil  
as an object, a non-person, a thing  
that she would name the ship's Helmsman.  
14 No one objected. None would voice complaint.  
A troll, a tool; what difference did it make?  
15 He was the first but not the last by far.  
16 And in his image many more were bound  
to serve as helmsmen, expanding her rule  
to further systems and to new planets.  
They fell so much more easily now that  
we ruled the places between space and time.  
17 With promises of grandeur and power,  
the whispered words of something great, she won  
the highbloods to her cause. 18 It was not hard.  
The rage was with them, for their twilit blood  
beat strong and cold inside their veins. 19 Her cause  
appealed to their subconscious selves, and they  
forgot their allies that they once called friend.  
We saw this change in them; unseen, we wept.  
20 With Gl'bgolyb's own strength to add to hers,  
Incessant Consternation had far more  
than she needed to fully ensure that  
highblood and lowborn would perpetuate  
as one the shackles of their own stations.  
21 She was not cruel when it pleased her. But now  
that time had finally come to an end.

**VII.**

1 It once was said that time like a river  
flows, carrying us all between its shores  
in currents strong enough to dash both life  
and hope; 2 churning, changing, ever moving,  
its forces threatening to overwhelm  
those who would stand up in the face of a  
great tyranny, especially when there  
remains no hope in sight for the oppressed.  
3 And yet only in knowing where it all  
began can we begin to understand  
that this foul cycle must come to an end.  
4 So long as we permit her rule, for us  
injustice continues when it should not.  
5 There is something much greater than what we  
have now. 6 There is another world that could be ours:  
a world where all live side by side, as one;  
a world where we supersede the quadrants,  
transcending those frail boundaries; a world  
that He has seen, that He speaks of to us.  
7 Hearken ye to the Words of the Signless.  
Hearken ye well to truth so long denied.  
8 With His own eyes, within His dreams, He dreams  
and sees an alternate Alternia,  
another existence that we may live.  
9 Within His blood, and within ours, it waits  
for those among us brave enough to change  
the very foundation of our empire.  
10 From rust to tyrian and all the hues  
between, our worth would then be judged upon  
our words, our thoughts, our actions - what we say,  
and what we do, and who we choose to be.  
11 It is our choice; it is your choice. 12 Hearken  
to His words, the Words of the Signless, that ye  
may choose for choice, for freedom, for us all.  
13 Recall well now how it has all begun  
lest our dark past be destined to repeat.  
14 Recall well, and hearken ye to His Words  
and join Him, join me, join us all to break  
Incessant chains and end this long nightmare.  
15 We must remember from whence we have come  
that we may understand how it must end.

  



End file.
